Each Broken Object

"David Greenslade’s object poems work where edges become visible, local and urgent. He pays tribute to the gift exchange genre of Welsh poetry – of desire, display, exchange and alliance – also beauty and fantasy in which these new object poems are so rich. Very very exciting."Andrew Duncan, poet and editor of Angel Exhaust.

"I am fascinated by David Greenslade’s poetic phenomenology and believe it is of the utmost relevance in today’s world where the “thinging of the thing” (as Heidegger put it) has slipped into forgetfulness."Richard Kearney, author Wake of the Imagination.

"William Carlos Williams said “No ideas but in things” and I was reminded of this while reading about the things which this book is made. I especially enjoy its sounds, rhythms and subtle rhymes. I am especially pleased that engineering can play a passionate role in literary thinking."Henry Potroski, author Remaking the World – Adventures in Engineering.

Paperclip

Who could combine as inscrutablyneither frowning nor approvingbut, clearly having made a standat the top left of the paper, slippedon and easily removed by hand.

Unwound into twisted cranksbetween fingerprints and nails;devised to mark, deface, scratcha school desk, puncture wild eggs;bulldog clips are no match

for versatile, self-envelopingwire, three times its length unstretched; has fixed breaks, bridles,picked locks, prospected ear wax;bees knees - its press never idle.